Alright, again a good morning to you. We are studying James’ letter this morning. So please turn with me to our text in James chapter 1. James chapter 1, this morning we are looking at verses 5 through 8. Alright, James 1, beginning in verse 5. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, and unstable in all his ways.”

Alright this letter, as it is obvious, is written by James. As I mentioned last week that this is James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he’s writing to Christians, Christians everywhere because in the very first verse we are told that these Christians are scattered abroad. So applying to us, as I mentioned that the twelve tribes mentioned in verse 1 refer to the Christians in the New Testament, refers to all of us who are in different places today, whether we are here this morning or scattered in different places in other towns. Now what James is writing about is about their Christian life or about their faith. And James is writing that they should live out a kind of Christian life that will prove that their faith is true. He writes about many different subjects or areas about Christian living.

That’s why some commentaries would entitle their commentary on this epistle as “A Practical Christian Living”. Now the first subject that James writes about to the Christians is suffering. Now the first thing I would like to underscore here to all of us is that Christians do suffer. There’s no way that we can run away from that reality if we were to be honest in reading the Bible. So it’s plain in the Scripture that we (and that is Christians) will face trials, will suffer. That’s the reason why he writes in verse 2 that we are to consider or count it all joy not if when we fall into various trials but when we fall into various trials. So James is assuming that we will experience suffering.

Now I’d like to begin by telling two stories of sufferings. These are real people. These are Christians, and these are Christians who suffer. One is a missionary story. I’ve taken here from the HeartCry website about one of their missionaries. Many of their missionaries are suffering, and I believe that many missionaries out there today they are suffering. Now this is a missionary from Myanmar, and he wrote this report, and I read. “I am writing this Report with a broken and trembling heart. My eyes are filled with sadness and tears of hurt. First of all, I want to beg you to pray for our safety and protection. I pray that the angel of the Lord will continue to surround every home in our country.

The military has taken control and is killing civilians. Every day we needed to collect dead bodies on the road with tears and pains. It breaks my heart so much. Everywhere is filled with smoke. Thousands of people don’t have work, food, and a place to stay. Just a while ago, the soldiers’ truck came and stopped near our house. We were terrified; they captured six people who were having tea in the shop. Dear friends, I have two small little girls, one is two years, and the other six months; I don’t care if I don’t have food to eat, but I think much for them and their safety. Soldiers are catching people from every house, and now they are near to us. Please pray for us.”

Now I think this is not an unusual type of letter report you will hear of today. You can read of other letters from Afghanistan and other places, but this is what James is talking about. Dear brethren, he writes, count it all joy when you fall into various trials. All kinds of trials, big and small. Let me tell you a second story this morning and that of my friend. Now my friend David and his wife Loo Geok, now this is a picture taken many, many years ago. We were college friends. They have or they had three lovely kids. They were brilliant kids, and they were thought to be healthy kids. And then something happened.

They begin to notice unusual behaviour of their children when their kids were in primary school. As I say when they were in kindergarten, they could do primary math. When they were three years old, they could actually read. But then all of a sudden, one by one, their children began to show signs of slowing down. They became passive, inattentive, and unable to read. And then they realised that their kid has contracted a disease, a fatal and incurable disease. And the second picture here is what they are today. Now my friends and their two kids (the other one has passed on). Now this is after more than many years. You can see one of the kids now is thirty years old, the other is twenty-four. The second one has died.

All these years they spent their lives taking care of their kids 24/7. They are utterly dependent on their parents for all their needs. They’ve contracted a disease called the Niemann-Pick disease, and I can say this is an incurable and fatal disease. The first day of this year 2022, my friend sent a post to greet all his friends “Happy 2022”. Now, this next picture is a picture taken when he just left his hospital on the 1st of January 2022. He took the time to send greetings while his wife went to pack some lunch for the family. Happy New Year, he said.

Sufferings. These are Christians. My friend now is a lecturer in the Bible college. You see, maybe you are suffering. You are going through some trials of some kind. Your trials can be big trials like the two friends that I’ve just told you just now, or your trials could be small trials at home, in your workplaces, at school. Your trials could be emotional, your trials could be physical. But here’s the point: Christians do suffer. Let no one deceive you and no one tell you that if you suffer, it is because you are not in the will of God because sometimes God does will that His people go through suffering for their good. That’s what James is underscoring here.

But what we want to look at this morning is this: What shall we do or what do we do when we suffer? What do people do when they suffer? What does James tells us to do when we suffer? He says, verse 5: “If any one of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God”. James tells us that when you are suffering, ask God. Not, you know some time ago for those of you who were perhaps around my age might remember that the Asian Beacon magazine, very popular Christian magazine. And at the last section or page of that magazine, there is this “Dear Goldie”. So people will write in with all their problems and to seek advice. But that is not what James tells us to do here.

Now it’s not wrong to ask counsel from people when you are suffering. Or many of you when you drive to work every day in the morning (if you still do), now you might turn on your radio and there’ll be people who call in and to ask for advice for various kinds of problems or trials in their life. There is a so-called expert on the other end and people calling and ask for counsel. James says to us as Christians when you suffer, ask. So that is my first point this morning that we are to ask God, that is we are to pray. We as Christians ought to remember of all the people in the world, the first person that we should turn to is God.

Our trust should not be in expertise or professionals or what. Our trust first and foremost must be in God Himself, and He should not be our last resort. He ought to be the first person, first direction we turn to. Now we see that James is huge on this. He emphasises this a lot in his letter. He said we as Christians must learn to turn to God in prayer. Chapter 4 of James and verse 2, he writes: “You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have”. Why? “Because you do not ask”. You see, we struggle in our life. We want this, we want that. We want answers, but we don’t pray. And then we think that our problem will go away.

Now James says you don’t have. You don’t have wisdom. You don’t know what to do because you don’t pray. You do not have, James says, because you do not ask. Or in chapter 5, James writes in verse 13: “Is anyone of you suffering?” Anyone among you suffering? “Let him pray.” That should be our counsel to Christians. That is this morning James’ advice to us. He says that yes, we all suffer. We go through trials, but have you prayed? Is anyone suffering, he says. Let him pray. Or in verse 14: “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray”. Let the church pray for you.

Verse 15: “And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah (he says) was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. Then he prayed again (in verse 18) and heaven gave rain”. Can you see the repetition here on prayer by James? He says that Christians must learn to pray and especially when you are going through trials. Be on your knees. Turn to God and ask Him for wisdom.

Now you see, James talks about wisdom here in the context of trials. He has not finished yet with the issue of suffering. He’s still thinking of trials and sufferings in our lives. And you know what? When we go through difficult times, we seek counsel, is it not? We look for help because we are in pain, because we are suffering. But what James says is here, do not rush to seek worldly counsel or help. Do not rush to the bookshop and look for a book, a self-help book. That is all that the people of the world have. They got nowhere to turn to except to the bookshop or to some people around us. It’s not to say that those things are no use.

But as Christians, now James is reminding us that we have better help than these, and we have the ultimate help that we should not neglect. That we should not neglect. “What a Friend we have in Jesus”, as the hymn writer writes. Now often we are still in our pains because we don’t turn to God. We turn to the seminars. We turn to other things except God. You see, James is reminding us of this unique resource that we have. That’s why James says if you are going through trials and you lack that wisdom as it were, you are struggling to try to understand or make sense of what you’re going through, he said ask God.

Now you find that the psalmist does this. You turn with me to Psalm 55. Psalm 55, look at verses 4 through 6. Psalm 55:4, here’s the psalmist in pain. And he cries: “My heart is (in anguish or) severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling have come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me. So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.”. This is the language of a man going through severe testing in his life, someone who is crying out that I’ll rather not live. Let me fly away somewhere. I cannot bear this anymore. And then he writes in verse 16: “But as for me”.

This is how I’m going to deal with this problem, deal with this trial in my life. But “as for me, I will call upon God, and the LORD shall save me. Evening and morning (verse 17) and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice.”. Now the psalmist is in pain. He is crying out in anguish, but he knows his resource. He understands what James is writing about here when in pain; when you can’t make sense of your suffering, ask God. Ask God, that’s what he says. And you know what? The Bible tells us that our God is our great Counsellor. He shall be called Wonderful Counsellor.

You see, He is wisdom. He is truth. You see, that is what James reminds us as Christians. You have a great and unique resource that no other people have in this world. If you are not a Christian, you do not have this. And if you are a Christian, why are you forsaking or neglecting this great resource that you have in time of trials? Do not belittle or underestimate or think nothing of this resource that you have, and that is pray, and that is asking God. But then James says here in James 1. He said if you lack wisdom in a time like this, he said ask God. Ask God. He is the great counsellor. He has great wisdom. But he says in verse 6: “But let him ask in faith”. Do not be like the wave, being tossed about to and fro.

Now, that is very unstable. That is not how we approach God in times of trials. Now there is a proper way of approaching God when you’re suffering. Very often when you’re in pain, you’re going through some crisis in your life and you come to God. But you come to God doubting. You wonder if He cares for you. You wonder if He knows your problem. You wonder if He could be trusted. You wonder if He will listen to your prayers. You wonder and wonder and wonder, but that is not how we come to God in prayer, in times of trials. We must have that great confidence. And that great confidence comes about how?

You see, you will not have that great confidence in God if you do not have a relationship with Him; if you do not know Him as your Heavenly Father. How often do we think of God as our Heavenly Father, or is He just a vending machine even a Coca-Cola I put fifty cents or one Ringgit, and we get my bottle of drink. And other than that, nothing. I mean I’m not sure whether even that bottle of drink will come out. If not, I’ll just kick the machine. What is your relationship with God? Now Jesus tells us a lot about this in His teaching. He says for example in His Sermon on the Mount. And as I say that James is a great student of our Lord. Many of the teaching in this epistle reflects the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now if we turn to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6, now Jesus reminds us of this. He talks about anxiety. He talks about when people are fearful. Maybe you have lost your job. Maybe you’re suffering from an illness. Maybe you’re going through the pains that my friends went through, some crisis in the family, family break up, and you are anxious. You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Now Jesus says to His disciple in Matthew 6:25- “Therefore I say to you, do not worry”. What? I’m in pain and you say no issue, no problem, don’t worry about it? Don’t be so anxious about this. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not your body more than food and the body more than clothing?”.

Now Jesus says this is how we handle trials. Trust. Trust. But how can you trust God unless you understand this truth that Jesus is teaching here in verse 26? He says, look. This is the reason why you can trust. “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father”. Look what Jesus says. Jesus did not tell His disciples that look at the birds of the air. They don’t worry. Why? Because their Heavenly Father knows. He didn’t say their Heavenly Father; He said your Heavenly Father cares for them. How much more would your Heavenly Father cares for you? If God is really your Father, Jesus assures us then He will care for you unless He is not your Father, and unless you don’t understand.

You have not fully grasped the full meaning of that relationship. And that’s why we fear. That’s why we turn to God and we doubt and we wonder. You see in chapter 7, Matthew. Matthew chapter 7, again on the same point. He said now you should come to God and have that confidence, Jesus says. Why? He said, “Ask (in verse 7), and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”. And then he says: “For what man is there among you, if his son asks for bread, will he give him a stone?”.

He said a father would not do a thing like that. Jesus is using our common experience to help us understand this immensely important truth of our relationship with God and that is of the father and a child. A father and a child. Your father won’t give you things that is bad for you. You should have that confidence. And so he writes in verse 11: “If you then”. If your earthly father is good to their children. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Now that is what James is talking about. When you’re in trials, why are you not praying? And when you turn to God, why are you doubting? Why?

Because you don’t understand that relationship, because you don’t understand how your father, how God feels about you. If He is truly your Father, He is the best Father, better than all the earthly father. So we must not come to God doubting, James says, and wondering if God will help us. But rather, we should come with that great confidence. We get great confidence that God is always eager, ready to hear the prayers, the cries. How? What mother is there when the baby cries, and the mother will not run to the baby? That is God. That is our God. And so we come. We come with this great confidence.

And to come with great confidence also means this. Not only we understand that relationship with God, but it also means is that when we come to God seeking wisdom from Him as it were, seeking that He might help us understand something of what we are going through because you see in trials, that is our difficulty. We are confused. We need counsel. We need wisdom. But remember what James says is this, that when we come to God seeking counsel as it were, seeking wisdom from Him, we are not shopping for answers. We are not shopping for answers. We are not going book to book in a bookshelf and see which book gives, provides the best answer. We are not going to counsellor after counsellor. We are going to this seminar after that seminar to see best answers to our problem.

Now, this is not how we come to God as if to see whether His solution sounds good or not if not written elsewhere. That is not coming to God with faith. That is not coming to God with that great confidence that He has the final answer, that He not only has the answer but He loves you. He wants to help you. You know why He has the best answer for you? Because He knows you. He knows exactly what you’re going through. He knows your problem more than you do. He knows why you are going through that. He knows how you can overcome that. He has the final answer. We come to Him like I said not shopping for answers. We come to Him believing that His is the only right answer. That’s why we come to Him.

Or maybe that’s why people are not going to God. That’s why people are not praying because they’ve got no confidence in the answers that He’s going to provide for your problem. His is the only right way to face trials. So when we don’t understand, we submit to His wisdom. The writer to the Proverbs said: “And let us lean not unto our own understanding” but to trust in Him. So that is the first thing here James tells us to do. He said when you are confused or in pain, ask God for help. Ask God for wisdom.

Now secondly, now what is this wisdom that we are asking for? What is it that we are asking for? Back to James 1:5. James writes: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God (or ask God)”. I remember the first time I studied this verse was many, many, many, many years ago when I was still a teenager in school. And this happened to be one of my favourite verses because I thought this is an exam verse. So we thought that that’s what this verse is about. If you do not know your exam answers to your exam question, just ask God alright. He will whisper it to you. Along the way, I get to understand this more and more, it’s more profound. In fact, there is a wrong understanding of this verse.

Remember this is about understanding our suffering, understanding our trial, or to make sense of our suffering. As I said a while ago when people go through trials and difficulties in their life, you look at pictures of people suffering. What do they want? How do they respond? I think a very common way of responding is trying to make sense of what is going on in our life. And often we ask questions. We ask questions like why? Why is this happening to me? Why I’m still in this after so long? Now listen to the cry of the psalmist again in Psalm 13. Psalm 13. If you are going through trials, now I recommend Psalm because the psalmist knows suffering. He knows suffering. He’s been through that and he writes out.

Psalm 13 (1 3). Verse 1: “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Look and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death”. I’m dying. I’m in ruin. I’m being dragged lower and lower down. Help me. Help me to understand why. What is going on in my life? And there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. That is the experience of many. Doesn’t seem to be light at the end which seems to be perpetually, perpetually like forever in this state, not able to come out of it.

And so you see, that is our natural cry. Why? How long must I continue with this? See what James says is this. When in trials, while we are prone to ask why, but that is often the wrong question because sometimes God tells us the reason, but sometimes He doesn’t. He doesn’t tell us the reason. And so we need to ask other questions or better questions. The more important questions are these: How can I understand this from God’s perspective? How can I navigate through this storm in a way that honours God? How can I or how can this trial help me grow in maturity and become a better Christian? You see, that is what James is talking about in the earlier verses when in trials.

You see, there is a design. There is a reason. Sometimes we don’t know the reason, but there is. Just that you do not know doesn’t mean that there is no reason for your trials. And therefore what James is saying is that pray for wisdom. And that wisdom is the wisdom of being able to see its benefit and value, the wisdom of being able to see your suffering from God’s perspective. Now John Piper actually suffered from cancer some time ago. Just before he went into the hospital for his surgery, now he wrote an article on cancer. He wrote: “Don’t Waste Your Cancer”. And I’d like to read a few points from the article. He says: “Don’t waste your cancer. You waste your cancer. You waste your suffering. You waste your trials if you don’t believe God designed it for you”.

You see, God does not just permit suffering. He designed it specifically for you. In other words, it’s meant for you. You waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift. Why am I cursed? Why am I like you know some people, bad luck? Why am I in this situation? You waste your cancer if you believe that it is a curse and not a gift because suffering is a gift from God meant to make us to rely Him more utterly. You waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death. You see, we don’t want to think about death. Even the last two years in the pandemic, still people who do not want to think about death and to be prepared for it, despite the fact that every day we hear of people dying from the virus.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 says “It’s better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting”. That is what suffering is meant to do to us, to make us think more deeply about life, to make us think about eternity and to think about death. Or the psalmist wrote: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”. And that is written in the context of death in Psalm 90. Now that is how we should face suffering. And next, he writes: “You waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.”. You waste a pandemic, if you spend so much time or too much time reading about the pandemic than reading about God, than reading the Bible faithfully.

You waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ. We have opportunity in suffering. That’s what it means to be a witness. Yes, in this time of trials we all have as a church that opportunity to be a witness to the world of how we Christians face suffering. Give us wisdom, pray for this wisdom. And that’s what James is talking about. That is the wisdom we should be praying for. And finally, how does God give us wisdom? How does God give us wisdom? James says if any of you lacks wisdom, ask God, that is ask in faith. With great trust that He has the final answer, with great confidence that He is our heavenly Father and He cares for us in times of suffering.

And we know that this wisdom that we’re asking is that wisdom that He will give to us so that we may glorify Him in times of trials. But how does He give us wisdom? Now God’s wisdom doesn’t come to us as a sudden revelation or an impression that kind of hits us out of nowhere. It’s not like when we walk on the road halfway and God suddenly gives us that wisdom or under the tree you know some wisdom kind of being whispered into our ears, or that some still small voice that God will speak into our ears to give us that spark of wisdom or understanding. Now that is not how God gives us wisdom. If you want wisdom, now this is how you get it. This is how God gives to us. Romans chapter 8.

Now Romans 8 is a familiar text to many. For many, that is the greatest text alright in the whole of this epistle to the Romans. And here, this verse is a well-known verse. But there is one thing I want to draw your attention to. Verse 28, where Paul writes again in the context of suffering. He says: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”. How does God give us this wisdom? How do we know? But Paul’s right. And we know. Know what? That all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

But how do we know? Paul, how do you know that all things work together for good? It’s easy to tell people all things work together for good. How do we know? This is how we know because when you read your Bible, you come to a verse like Genesis 50:20. Genesis 50:20, now listen to this verse here. Verse 20 of Genesis 50, Joseph said: “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive”. That is how Paul knew about this because he read his Bible. He read the story of Joseph. He sees his suffering. He read about the trials that Joseph went through.

But the end of it, he sees the design. He sees the purpose. He sees that there is a reason. There is a reason for his suffering because he has been informed by the Scripture. You read Exodus chapter 1, the very next book. Exodus chapter 1, and we read in verse 22: “So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river” because I want to kill all the sons. Cast them all into the river and drown them. And Moses’ mother, we are told in the second chapter of Exodus: “And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son.”. And she saw that he was a beautiful child, and so she wanted to save him.

“She hid him for three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, and put the child in it, and laid it in the river.”. Pharaoh said kill all those babies by casting them into the river. And the mother of Moses cast (her) son into the river to save him. And then we read, verse 5: “The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river. And her maidens walked along the riverside; and she saw the ark among the reeds, and she sent her maid to get it. And when she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby wept. So she had compassion on him”, and she took him to be her own child.

There is a reason. There’s a reason. God is in control of your suffering to bring about good. There is a pattern. There is a purpose in our suffering. And that is what we are told in the Bible. That’s what we are told in the Bible. And so how do we know the Word of God? It’s from the Word of God. That’s what if you want to have wisdom, that’s how God gave us wisdom. It’s here. It doesn’t come from the tree. It doesn’t come from the birds, whisper some messages to you. It doesn’t come from some kind of impression that you might have. No. Paul didn’t get all those information. He read his Bible. He read his Bible, and then he says now I know. I know that all things work together because the Bible tells me so.

So how do we help people in trials? How do you counsel people in trials? They’re going through suffering, how do you help them so that they may be wise, so that they can make some sense of their struggle? This is how we help them. We help them by helping them to know the Word of God. That’s what we call biblical counselling. We help them by helping them to see their suffering through the lens of Scripture. We help them by helping them apply biblical truth to their particular situation in life. Now that is what James is writing about. “If any one of you lack wisdom, let him ask God”. Do not doubt but ask in faith. And this is how God gave us wisdom- in His holy Word. Let us pray.

“Our dear Father in heaven, again we are reminded again. The fact that we live in a fallen world, a world that is under curse. And we, though being redeemed, suffer together with the rest of the world. But we thank You for the immense resources that are given to us. We thank You most of all that we can cry out to You. We can turn to You. And we thank You for the assurance that You are so compassionate and so willing to hear us in time of trials. And help us to learn to trust in You and to turn to You always when we suffer, for we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.